Hacker News Reader

Comment by higginsc | Hacker News Reader

>“Because Facebook is already in the hands of over a quarter of the world’s population, it is imperative that Facebook and its partners immediately cease implementation plans until regulators and Congress have an opportunity to examine these risks and take action,” the letter says.

We're scared that you have the ability to disintermediate our control of the financial system just like you did to publishers.

View on HN

Forced to choose between Facebook and a government controlling anything, I'd rather have the government at the wheel. For me this is a "devil I know" type of thing.

With government, you also get periodic opportunities to vote on whether or not it should change course. It's hard to change a government's direction with the ballot box, of course, but it's not impossible.

Contrast this to Facebook, which is structured specifically to prevent even large shareholders from having a say in its operations. Facebook is the Empire of Zuck, and the only factor that matters in its decisionmaking are the whims of its boy king.

I don’t think the interest of other large shareholders would be more aligned with the interest of the general population though.

Thankfully there's a third option of society itself controlling everything. This post is talking about whether government or Facebook controlling money but the third decentralized option of cryptocurrency is far more appealing to me.

"Society" is not a thing that can wield control. Or rather it can, by forming into things like governments and corporations. It is not parallel to those things, but their substrate.

I'm with you that seeing power concentrated in those places seems worse than spreading it out. But the way it looks to me now, people aren't going to generally mind their own bitcoin wallets, and will tend to use centralized brokers.

I think that's human nature, specifically some algorithm for operating in a group. If I don't feel confident doing X, maybe X is not my strong suit, and I should trade jobs with another person. If I mess up my crypto wallet, my money could almost literally disappear, so my confidence is low.

People are afraid to control their own destiny, and that's at least somewhat rational.

Facebook does not have a licit right to first use of force. I'll take it any day over government.

I’m probably reading too much into your comment, but there’s a big difference between “a” government and “the” government depending on where you live. I don’t trust Facebook at all, but I trust them more than I trust certain governments around the world. At least they don’t have a military. Sometimes assholes without guns are better to have in charge than anyone with guns.

Facebook is just as much protected by people with guns as any government.

I don't think I'd hold the position I do if protecting was all that the guns were used for.

Sure, my point is not to defend governments use of guns, but to point out that facebook’s power derived from its relationship with governments and hence that same power. It isn’t an alternative, but rather a part of the structure.

Pretty much.

That said, anyone in a position of power generally acts to defend their own power. It's not like we should not have expected this from the government. Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever type kooks are one thing. Grandma and her book club are never going to use that stuff to buy pies at the church's bake sell. Facebook offering Libra or, God forbid, Walmart offering "Wally Bucks", is an entirely different matter.

After 2008, that's a very reasonable worry. I'm happy for the government to prevent behavior that can cause that much harm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com